Generally, the basic steps for processing color photographic materials include a color-development step and a desilvering step. In the color-development step, silver halide that has been exposed to light is reduced with a color-developing agent, and the oxidized color-developing agent reacts with a coupler, to give a dye image. In the next desilvering step, the silver produced in the color-development step is oxidized with an oxidizing agent (commonly called a bleaching agent) and thereafter is dissolved with an oxidizing agent for silver ions, which is commonly called a fixing agent. Through this desilvering step, only a dye image is formed in the color photographic material.
There are two ways to carry out the above desilvering step: one comprises two baths, that is, a bleaching bath containing a bleaching agent and a fixing bath containing a fixing agent, and the other comprises one bath, that is, a bleach-fix bath containing a bleaching agent together with a fixing agent.
The practical development processing includes various subsidiary steps for the purpose, for example, of keeping the physical quality or making the preservability of the image better, such as a hardening bath, a stop bath, an image stabilizing bath, and a washing bath.
Recently, with the popularity of the small-sized-shop processing service system, that is, the socalled mini-lab processing service system, it is strongly desired to shorten the time needed for the above processing and to make the replenishing amount lower, so that customer requests for processing can be met quickly and maintenance work on the involved processing equipment can be reduced.
In particular, shortening of the desilvering step and the washing step, which conventionally take most of the processing time, is highly desired.
However, when the time required for the desilvering step (including a bleaching step, a fixing step, and a bleach-fix step) and the washing step is shortened or the replenishing amount is lowered, the following various problems result:
first, an increase in residual silver after processing (insufficient desilvering);
second, an increase in the minimum-density immediately after the processing (processing stain); and
third, an increase in the minimum density during storage of the processed sample.
To improve silver retention among these problems, it is known to use a bleaching agent high in oxidation power, such as red prussiate, bichromates, ferric chloride, persulfates, and hydrobromides, but these have many defects in view of environmental preservation, handling safety, and corrosiveness of metals, and therefore they cannot practically be widely used in shop processing or the like.
Further, if the color development step is followed immediately by a bleaching process directly without an intermediate bath in order to shorten the processing step, this is accompanied by a defect that worsening of the increase of the minimum-density due to the above-described processing is observed. This phenomena is very conspicuous, for example, when a bleaching solution containing ferric 1,3-diaminopropanetetraacetate high in oxidation power, as described in JP-A ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application) No. 222252/1987, is used.
In order to solve these problems, JP-A No. 37556/1989 discloses a method for improving processing stain by using a specific cyan coupler, and JP-A No. 23257/1989 discloses a method for improving processing stain by using a specific high-boiling organic solvent. Regarding suppression of cyan stain, the effect for improving processing stain by these methods is satisfactory to a certain extent, but with respect to magenta stain and yellow stain the effect is still unsatisfactory, and in particular it remains desired to lower magenta stain.
Further by these methods, the effect for improving the problem of color increase with time, which occurs during storage after the processing, is small, and the effect for improving magenta color increase is very small.
While the washing step, etc. are being made rapid and the replenishing amount is being lowered, there is a present and future demand for a photographic material that will develop less stain during storage after processing.